Can We Talk About Drug Patents?

The NYT had a short editorial discussing the issues raised by the refusal of insurance companies to pay for many expensive drugs of questionable usefulness. It would have been useful to point out the reason that drug prices are high and that drug companies mislead the public about the degree of their effectiveness. 

If the government did not grant patent monopolies, most of these drugs would sell for less than 10 percent of their patent protected prices and possibly less than one percent...